


Créme

by SkyyeStrike



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Awkward Flirting, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Food Porn, M/M, References to Depression, bakingAU, like literal food though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26590033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyyeStrike/pseuds/SkyyeStrike
Summary: Jack, somehow, has fallen into a strange, quasi-rhythm of taking the desserts he whips up each night and guiltily leaving them outside of his upstairs neighbor’s door.
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Comments: 28
Kudos: 76





	1. Lemon- Blueberry Panna Cotta

Jack, somehow, has fallen into a strange, quasi-rhythm of taking the desserts he whips up each night and guiltily leaving them outside of his upstairs neighbor’s door. 

At first, it’s spur of the moment. He’s made WAY too many cannolis. And by too many, he means that casually, he had somehow completely underestimated how much one batch of dough would yield and had gone and tripled all the ingredients without thinking twice. Then, as he started pouring, pressing and curling delicate shells into their standard tubular shapes around the little molds he had purchased, Jack looked around his kitchen with the forlorn realization that he had no clue what the hell he was going to do with this many desserts. 

His kitchen is basically flooded, every counter and tabletop into the living room covered in ingredients and the extra batches of mascarpone creme filling he’d had to make to compensate for the extra rolls of fried dough. There was no way he could eat them all- no way Angela would take this truckload of sweets from him without an insane amount of teasing and underlaid worrying. And Jack’s fridge certainly didn’t have enough room for all of them that was for sure. 

And just as Jack is debating the merits of trying to hand them out of street corners to anyone who would take them, he hears a distinctive laugh from outside. 

Jack’s apartment on the second floor looks out over the small circular courtyard and parking area for the building's residents. It’s impossible to miss most comings and goings, but Gabriel Reyes’ voice always seemed to carry over the rest, and sure enough, when Jack peeks out the window, Gabriel is unmistakable standing by his babied, vintage muscle car and chatting with Ana Amari from three floors up. As Jack watches, Gabriel laughs again, loud enough to make its way through Jack’s cracked living room window and into his kitchen. 

Jack watches in silence as Gabriel’s arms fold over his chest and Ana’s hip cocks. An idea occurs.

He glances back at his kitchen, so overflowing with pastry that he’d been hopping and dancing around all the accoutrements to continue working. If he left a basket outside of Ana’s door, she might try and read into it. Inquire about his health, and if he was staying busy or if he was too busy, how he was holding up and all the other menial questions that everyone else seemed sworn to ask him each and every time they saw him. But Gabriel? Gabriel had never been nosy- he and Jack had exchanged greetings in the halls, short pleasantries, and kept to themselves. Good neighbors and not all too much else.

He also happened to know after many late nights getting smashed with Jesse over bad sitcoms, that Gabriel had a sweet tooth. 

The smell of his latest batch of cannoli shells coming to a finish rises up and Jack quickly pops them out from the hot oil to cool on their designated metal racks. Then, he fishes a plate from the cupboard and starts stacking. 

He manages to squeeze about twenty of them into a little tower of confectionary sugar before they start trying to topple. A glance out the window yields no more Gabriel, but that was fine. 

Making sure the stove is off before he goes, Jack takes the plastic-wrapped plate in hands and hums a little as he makes his way down the hall and to the stairs, jogging up the single flight of stairs to Gabriel’s floor. 

Gabriel’s door is unmarked- the only reason Jack is sure this one is his apartment is Jesse’s consistent moaning and crying about his next door neighbor’s night-owl tendencies and voracious, unattainable hotness. Jesse’s neighboring door is not quite as blank, adorned with a lucky horseshoe on it’s mantle and the cheesy cow wearing a cowboy hat doorstop that Jesse had lovingly dubbed ‘Millie.’ 

Millie stares at him rather accusingly as Jack comes to a stop in front of someone else’s door and not Jesse’s. But Jack pays no mind- Jesse got enough sweets from Jack’s kitchen to give him diabetes twice over.

Leaving the cannolis atop Gabriel’s plain doormat makes him wish he’d had the forethought to write out a quick explanation, or at the very least bring a sticky note. They look pretty lonely just abandoned in front of a plain door, but he would have to trust that Gabriel would get them and not think they were poisoned or something. He shouldn’t knock- wouldn’t want to bother Gabriel on his way in from a night spent out doing…. Well, whatever it was that had him coming home at 7 in the morning.

Jack’s watch blips to life with a sudden  _ beep beep beep _ , and he shuts it off quickly. Gabriel seemed like a smart guy- he’d probably figure out who dropped the sweets for him, or Jesse would spill the beans and tell him. 

So Jack leaves it like that, and heads back downstairs to clean his kitchen before he ended up late for work. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


The second time, it’s more intentional. But it’s kind of hard not to want to show everyone his perfect, miniature blueberry-lemon panna cotta towers- The dessert is just so pretty and had turned out so deliciously well, it would be a shame  _ not  _ to share it. 

The problem was that Angela was still going to be at work for another six hours. And by the time she got home, she would be exhausted enough to just pass out on her couch- Jack couldn’t bother her, even with a dessert this good. 

Without any intention, his mind wanders to Gabriel and wonders if he had liked the cannolis. This dessert was way better than those- did Gabriel like blueberry and lemon? 

He looks critically down at the dessert. Unlike the cannolis, he hasn't made too much. Barely enough to make the six perfect little cakes that sat before him now, meticulously poured and chilled, poured and chilled, then dolloped with cream and lemon zest. The blueberry syrup layer made the tiny yellow dessert look immaculately tantalizing- practically good enough to sit in a shop window. Would Gabriel be impressed?

He debates with himself for another minute, before he settles on an answer. Who in their right mind would turn down a free dessert? But the cake was too delicate to leave out on the doorstep on just a plate….

So Jack spends a few minutes digging through his cupboards and shuffling through baking cookware until he finds some spare white takeout boxes, forgotten and in need of folding from his days working at a restaurant. He fumbles a bit with the thick cardboard before remembering how to put the box into shape, and when he pops the cake inside, it looks like a professional dessert. Immensely satisfying. 

He’s practically jogging his way upstairs, box in hand before he realizes that Gabriel might not even be home yet. It was still early- Jack hadn’t bothered to check to see if Gabriel’s car was parked in the courtyard before he left. Would the dessert melt before Gabriel could get it?

He stops in front of Gabe’s plain door, suddenly unsure. He’d left cannolis before, but had Gabe even gotten them? Was it okay to just be leaving random desserts at a neighbors door that he’d barely had two crosswise conversations with? Was this weird? He remembered the note this time, but the plain description of “Lemon Blueberry Panna Cotta” seemed horribly subpar in lieu of an explanation for these strange leavings. 

He hesitates a second too long, because then the door is swinging open and Gabriel is staring down it with a comical look of surprise.

“Uh-” Jack says, caught red handed and about to abandon the treat on the doormat for the second time this week.

“Uh.” Confirms a very shirtless Gabriel, toothbrush stuck sideway from his mouth.

There’s silence as they stare at each other, Jack slowly turning what was probably a pretty brilliant shade of red, and Gabriel frozen with one hand on the door and one hand on the door frame. Half crouched as he is, Jack is almost nose to nose with Gabriel’s waist-line and the low sling of his sweatpants, blatantly confronted with the fact that his neighbor is most definitely ripped.

With an awkward cough, Jack straightens and holds the box before him. 

“I ah, made extra. Didn’t want it to go to waste.” It’s not a lie, just a gentle fib. It’s too much to hope that it makes up for the redness that Jack can feel burning across his face. When Gabriel doesn’t immediately say anything, he nearly thrusts the dessert at Gabriel.

Gabriel looks at it, confused, then back at Jack. The toothbrush stuffed in his cheek makes his words come out slightly slurred. “Did you leave those cannolis last week?”

Oh yeah. Totally caught red handed. Jack laughs, impossibly more awkward and trying real hard not to let his wandering gaze catalogue every exposed inch of Gabriel’s skin. He rubs the back of his head, glaring down the hallway instead. His eye catches on Millie. She looks even more accusing than before. He should’ve left this batch in front of that door instead, and instead he had only thought of dropping it here. “Haha, yeah…. Underestimated how much a batch would make.”

Gabriel’s eyebrow quirks singularly. “Didn’t want those to go to waste either?”

“Uh, yeah. Something like that.”

The silence lapses again, and it’s this exact moment that Jack becomes poignantly aware of the fact that he knows literally nothing about this man he’d randomly selected to receive his extra desserts and was having a hard time not ogling in the middle of the hallway.

_ God, what the hell was he thinking _ ? Jack’s face burns darker, makes the back of his neck feel furiously sunburnt. 

“I uh, I gotta go!” Is falling from his mouth before he can think of anything better. “Gonna be late for work and all-” It’s his late day, and Jack didn’t have to be at work for at least another two hours, but the excuse is already past his lips and making space between Jack’s feet and Gabriel’s doorway. “Enjoy the dessert, let me know what you think!”

And then he’s escaping down the hall and around the corner like the absolute blushing moron that he is. Behind the safety of his own apartment door, in the muffled silence of his kitchen, Jack comes to the mournful conclusion that somehow, someway, he’d managed to land himself a very inconvenient crush on his upstairs neighbor. 

* * *

  
  


Gabe lets his door shut after Jack runs away like a bat out of hell. In his hands is a crisp, professional white box. When the lid pops open, the prettiest dessert Gabriel has ever seen in his life is nestled flawlessly at its’ center.

“ _ It’s too pretty to eat. _ ” He mumbles to himself, frowning down at it and thinking of the cannolis that had been surreptitiously left on his doorstep before. They had been just as perfect looking, and they’d been godly levels of good to eat. And now, he was being presented with this, and it somehow looked even better. 

“What is?” Says Amélie from his couch, laid out to take up every spare inch of space available. Her dauntingly strappy stilettos have been cast off in favor of sticking her stocking clad feet over the arm of the couch and righteously up into the air. 

Gabriel just sets the box on the table before her and goes to rinse out his mouth thoroughly, putting his toothbrush back in its place. 

“Who is this from? A lover?” She calls out after him teasingly.

“My neighbor.” Gabriel says, coming back and settling on the floor across from her. “He left cannolis last week.”

“And you didn’t share?” Amélie accuses. She sits up and turns the box critically, eyeing it from all corners like a judge in a prestigious cooking show. After a moment’s thought, she gives him a decisive nod. “It is a love profession.”

Gabriel’s guffaws at her. “You mean  _ confession _ ? You’ve had too much wine.”

“It has been hours since my last drink, Gabriel. You would know.” She waves off flippantly and continues. “Confession, profession- In France, we gift the most beautiful of trinkets to those we admire, so that they may admire them too. Is this not the same?”

“I think he just bakes all the time.” Gabriel mulls and turns the box to face him once again and rereads the post-it note that proclaimed in neat little words ‘Lemon Blueberry Panna Cotta.’ There’s a lopsided smiley-face at the edge of the words that makes Gabriel’s lips twitch. 

“This is quite a dessert for someone who ‘just bakes.’” Amélie pushes. “Panna Cotta is not a boxed dessert, like you Americans usually make.”

Gabriel shrugs. “Ana says he does it as a pastime.” He may have asked around the building a little after the plate of mysterious cannolis had appeared on his doorstep out of the blue. Ana had seemed under the impression that giving away desserts to strangers he’d never formally met was a very Jack-like thing to do, and it had probably been him. “He said he made too much?”

Too beautiful to eat or not, the fresh, sharp smell of lemon was now invading Gabriel’s living room. He gets up to fetch a spoon from the kitchen.

Amélie snorts at him. “Surely not. He must work in pattiserié. The mirror glaze is exquisite.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” Gabriel replies, being a gracious enough host to return with a spoon for Amélie as well. And like the ungrateful demon of a friend she is, she snatches the box from between his fingers and steals the first heaping bite for herself. 

She hasn’t even withdrawn the spoon from between her lips when her eyebrows rise right up into her hairline and stay there, as unmoving as the rest of her. She blinks, strangely mute.

“What?” Gabriel asks, suddenly concerned. Amélie waves the box at him across the table and licks her spoon clean in absolute, eerie silence. 

He takes a bite, and understands. 

Tart and not too sweet, the cream is smoothly cool, the blueberry gelatin is a perfect contrast, combining an explosion of flavor, a symphony of texture like some wonderful god’s ambrosia. Gabriel’s eyes roll back in his head. It tastes like he’s taken a bite of summer. He’s getting a second spoonful to chase the taste before he can think of anything else. 

Amélie regards him solemnly and waggles her immaculately clean spoon. “It is a love profession,  _ mon ami _ .”

Gabriel groans into his third mouthful, the dessert shrinking frighteningly fast. “It’s ‘confession,’ Amélie. And that’s not what this is.”

Despite copious protesting on his part, she ends up being the one to run her finger around the inside rim of the dish at it’s delicious end. 

* * *

  
  


Jack frowns down at the container (tupperware, this time), and can’t help but be a little annoyed at himself. Maybe he hadn’t quite thought this through. If left out, the ice cream would just melt down and the consistency would be all wrong- icy and grainy, if it didn’t simply just turn to a souply cube the shape of its’ container. Not worth serving to anyone, much less Gabriel. 

Jack’s recent baking endeavor had actually been ice cream- no baking involved, just a lot of waiting. The fun had been in deciding the flavors: strawberry-basil, with a dark chocolate swirl. Jack had made a big batch so he had some to bring Angela. Her health nut crazed ass would go crazy over the flavor. Gabriel, he wasn’t so sure, but it seemed weird to skip on giving him this one dessert when he’d had a sampling of every other one this week. 

So here he is, once again hesitating too long in front of Gabriel’s door. He can’t just leave it on the doorstep.

Jack’s foot taps. What would Angela do?

The answer to _ that _ is easy enough. So Jack drops the container, knocks real hard, real quick on the door four times to make sure anyone inside hears, and ditches like he’s playing ding-dong ditch in middle school. 

Safe around the corner of another doorway, it’s only sheer force of will that keeps Jack from outright giggling. Especially when the sound of a door opening is accompanied by a confused “Whu-?”

_ Package received, _ Jack sniggers to himself, grinning like a fool as he sneaks away. He can’t help the way his schoolyard crush expands into something fluttery and wonderful inside his chest. 

* * *

  
  


McCree makes himself welcome in Gabe’s house nearly as often as Amélie manages to. And it’s one of these days when he goes to the kitchen for a beer and comes back instead with the latest of Jack’s much coveted desserts- the last of two chocolate pistachio tarts he’d been gifted, the delicate chocolate curls still intact.

“Is this one of  _ Jack’ _ s treats?” He asks quietly, like he’s afraid of the answer. 

Gabriel frowns, and is suddenly reluctant to give him one. “... Yes.”

“How  _ the hell  _ did you get one of these?”

All at once, Gabriel is defensive about the dessert that had been innocuously waiting to be devoured in his fridge later tonight. He shifts and folds his arms over his chest in a challenge. “Jack brought it to me.”

Jesse splutters, makes a lot of rather extravagant and way too dramatic motions with his hands and elbows, and then, very imploringly, gives Gabriel his biggest, best puppy-dog eyes. “You’re gonna let me have a bite, right? Gabe, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal?”

“Fuck no,  _ pendejo _ . Fuck off and find your own dessert.”

Jesse clutches at his heart, carefully balancing the dessert in his other hand as he pretends to be shot. “My oldest bestest friend- you wound me!”

“I am neither of those things, and your acting sucks.”

“Then you won’t mind if I just help myself?”

“ _ Yes, _ I  _ fucking _ mind.”

Jesse’s responses stop. Then, there rises the ominous sound of rattling spoons in a drawer from the kitchen to match the conspicuous silence. Gabriel cranes his head around the couch. Jesse is nowhere to be seen. 

“You’ve got to be fucking with me-” Gabriel swears, leaps over the back of the couch and scoots his way into the kitchen-

Jesse looks up, not even guilty and three bites through the chocolate crust. He gives Gabe a singular thumbs up. “S’good.”

“You  _ little asswipe- _ ” Gabriel lunges, but Jesse is faster, swooping away with a whoop and Gabe crashes harmlessly into the fridge. The bottles perched atop wobble precariously and Gabe reaches out just in time to catch the olive oil. 

“ _ What is going on here _ ?” Says a sharp voice from the doorway. Amélie, who had let herself in as silently as a wraith, is glaring through the kitchen at Gabriel being held off by Jesse at only an arms length, to Jesse’s spoon held aloft like a battering baton, and final zeroes in with laser focus on the dessert, left safely unattended on the counter. 

“Is that one of the neighbor’s desserts again?” she says in a deadly quiet voice. McCree makes a heavenly orgasmic noise and Gabe wants to punch him. 

“Jack? Sure is.”

And Amélie, like the horrible shitty excuse for a friend she is, drops her purse immediately on the table and walks straight past both Gabriel and Jesse without further greeting. “Just as good as the last.” She hums, traitorously joining in devouring  _ Gabriel’s _ dessert with a look like bliss.

“ _ Seriously? _ ” Gabriel bemoans as she digs in. He’s not gonna get any of that tart, is he?

“Mm. Jack makes the best goodies.” McCree agrees as he extracts himself from Gabriel, and then makes a sound.“Wait- How many of these is _Gabe_ getting _?_ ”

“There is a new one everytime we come home in the mornings,” Amélie tells him. They’re talking over Gabe like he isn’t even here, eating his dessert, in  _ his  _ kitchen, in  _ his house _ .

“I’m right here.” Gabriel growls pissily. “Ana said-”

“ _ What? _ ” McCree bursts over him. “No freaking fair! That’s just dang  _ unfair _ !” He gives Gabe his most betrayed look, which is completely ill fitting on his unshaved, thug face. “I’m coming over here more often!”

Gabriel splutters, “Oh no you’re not-”

“Indeed. I have considered the same myself.” He is once again cut off, this time by Amélie. “Our Gabriel does not know what luck he has.”

“Fuck, I never get that many, and I’m always chilling with Jack.” McCree moans. “I think I gotta get him drunker next time.”

This perks Gabriel’s interest. He doesn’t know all that much about Jack, other than that he rarely ever delivered the desserts in person, and they never ever managed to disappoint. “You hang with Jack?”

But his so-called friends just talk right over him. “That is your best idea yet, Jesse,” Amélie agrees easily, and then leans over the kitchen counter conspiratorially, as if she were about to give only the sagest of advice. “These are love confessions, you know.”

“ _ No!  _ You  _ think?”  _ Jesse gasps. “Y'think Ana knows? Aw hell, I gotta go buy a bottle of booze- we are solving this.”

“You will invite me, yes?”

Gabriel groans, takes himself away from the miserable sight of watching Jack’s dessert be eaten, goes back to the couch, and resolves himself to get some new friends. 

  
  



	2. Macarons & Chocolate Shavings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack makes a cake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SUNA NO OSHIRO - Yura Yura Teikoku (SAND CASTLE, by: the Wobbling Tower)  
>  I have a dream that never ends.  
>  I don’t want foreign ships to return as they are-  
>  I want to travel away.

Two weeks pass, and in that time, Jack manages to create and deliver an unholy amount of baked goods. He wonders if Gabe is sick of it yet, but there’s been no word. Their schedules don’t exactly align, and Jack’s deliveries in the morning are quick and perfunctory. 

And then, one Friday afternoon after his shift, Gabriel shows right up at his door. 

That morning, earlier than usual, he’d dropped off a massive bowl of plum pudding that he’d whipped up the night before. It was a little bit out of season, sure, but the task had been time consuming and unusual, which was generally all it took for Jack to bookmark a recipe he wanted to try. He’d had to prep ingredients days ahead of time, letting the fruits soak in cognac and spices until they were thoroughly juice, and the end result had reminded him of holidays, sitting around the hearth with his family, stealing sips of his mother’s mulled wine from his father’s mug. 

It’s this same plum pudding that Gabriel is eating when Jack opens the door. He waves at it with a fork. “What th’ fuck is this shit?”

This… this has never happened before. Well actually, Jack hadn’t even been certain Gabe knew which apartment he lived in- only that he lived in the building. 

But despite the rather rude question, Gabriel seems to be enjoying it. The bowl is half gone already, so Jack just stutters “Plum pudding?”

“Like the christmas shit?” Gabriel turns the bowl this way and that. “Guess it kinda tastes like christmas, just didn’t think it was gonna be so… black.”

Jack smirks. “It’s got a lot of spices in it.”

“Yeah, no shit. McCree already stole like… half of it.” He tells Jack mournfully, still munching slowly. He leans into the doorway, utterly casually as he eats, and gives a tilted look. “So. You gonna let me inside?”

Uh. 

Wordlessly, Jack steps aside and holds the door open. And then… well, then Gabriel is in his house.

“Christmas shit s'posed to be shared,” Gabriel says aloud as he looks around the room, still chowing down on the bowl of plum pudding. Jack shuffles awkwardly and struggles not to wring his hands with nerves as Gabriel stalks through his house, cataloging everything, passing silent judgement that Jack wishes fervently he had a window to. Then, Gabe’s gaze falls to the plate of finished and assembled macarons sitting front and center on Jack’s kitchen table. “Those up for grabs?”

Technically, those ones were the ones Jack intended on bringing to the night shift at Angela’s hospital. The nurses always went all mooney when he brought macaroons by the ER, but- “Yeah, I’ll make more.” 

“Fuck yea,” Gabriel mumbles just before attacking the plate. 

Well. At least Jack knew for sure now that Gabriel wasn’t yet sick of the sugar. 

Having Gabriel in his house is… strange. Having anyone but himself here was kinda strange, actually. Ever since everything had happened, Angela was the only one who dropped by, and that was only to get Jack  _ out _ of the house. No one ever really… came over. 

Now, Gabriel is sitting himself at Jack’s kitchen counter like he’d already been here before, helping himself to another cookie and seeming completely at ease. It’s as confusing as it is thrilling.

Jack swallows thickly and struggles to think of something, anything at all to say. He scans over the recipe he’d been working through kind of desperately and has to clear his throat to get it to work. “You know it’s not actually christmas, right?”

“Hey, you’re the one who made plum pudding in April.” Gabriel mouths, and snatches another blackberry lemon cookie. “You’re making more right now? Let me watch.”

Gabriel wanted to watch him bake? From right there at Jack’s kitchen table? It shouldn’t seem so personal, but suddenly Jack is even more flustered at that idea than trying to get used to the fact that he had a very attractive neighbor he’d been dishing desserts to for the past month suddenly sitting in his home. He coughs to cover his embarrassment. “I can’t stop you.”

Gabriel hums and eats another cookie. The plate is vanishing quickly, and so Jack gets to work.

Macarons were one of the first things that Jack had tried his hand at, and his first attempts were pretty miserable. There was a practiced trick to getting the shells to rise in just the right way, and the timing down to the millisecond to get the perfect crisp tops and gooey centers. 

But the Valentine’s day after everything had happened had been a miserable affair for Angela, and so Jack had made her the one thing he knew Jimmy purchased for her every birthday, Christmas, Valentine’s day, and holiday in between. He made macarons for her. And (grossly failed as they were) he and Angela had spent that afternoon settled on the living room floor eating the sugary mess together, piece by gooey, crumbling piece while they binged terrible romantic comedies that had them both sniffling by the end. 

He’d made loads of much better, much more glamorous macarons since then, but everytime Jack whipped together another set, he’s reminded of eating that first batch with Angela, leaning against his side as she sniffled and sobbed through mouthfuls.

Now, it’s the work of seconds to find where he’d left off in the recipe and continue on. Gabriel watches him in mild fascination, but that’s easy to tuck in the back of Jack’s mind when he has a task at hand to focus on. 

He’s mulling over whether or not to make a double or a triple batch when he asks Gabriel, “What flavor do you want?”

Gabriel’s eyes go big like dinner plates. “I get to  _ choose? _ ”

Jack laughs at his expression, and decides on a triple batch so that Jesse won’t need to steal any of the batch he wanted to send Gabe home with. He starts sifting through the almond flour mixture until it becomes evenly fluffy. “Yeah, why not?”

Gabriel settles (after many denied suggestions and some cajoling) on salted caramel. And when Jack starts cooking down the sugar into caramel, Gabe comes over to the stove to watch from up close, like a curious kid. 

“This is a fucking science experiment,” Gabe mutters, face dangerously close to the simmering pan of melted sugar. Jack has to practically wave his nose out of the way so he can start whipping in heavy cream to form the thick, trademark caramel he would dollop in the very center of the macarons. 

“Baking is more chemistry than anything else,” Jack tells him, trying not to snicker at how absolutely invested Gabriel is in just the process of making caramel. He sprinkles in extra coarse sea salt and butter. It has to melt before he can set the fresh caramel aside to cool. “Getting things to rise is a chemical reaction- getting the caramel to stay soft and gooey is just a matter of timing and temperature.”

Gabriel hums, and his eyes track Jack’s movements around the kitchen. “You some kinda chemistry nerd?” Gabriel asks him.

“Hardly.” He’d barely passed biology in high school, much less made it to chemistry. Most of the obscure baking facts he knew had come from Jimmy while he had been fervently pursuing his degree in the medical field alongside Angela. He can still hear Jimmy’s voice, right over his shoulder, nagging him about chemical compositions in baking and their changes while he works.

Gabriel seems to sense the shift in mood. He takes a place leaning against the counter instead of following Jack around the kitchen like he had been, mutely watching Jack fold the flour in batches into the whipped eggs and sugar. He has to slide to the left when Jack needs a spatula from the drawer he’s propped against. “Why do you bake so much? You a chef?”

“No, no, nothing like that.” Jack says quickly. “I just like it, I suppose. I don’t really eat too much of it, but everyone else seems to like what I make well enough, so I just… keep doing it.”

It actually sounds a little cheap when he says it like that, but there’s no easy way to describe to Gabriel why he does it. What it does for him. It both takes away a small, sad piece of himself that niggles at him day in and day out, then replaces it with something a mite sweeter for fleeting moments in between the sudden solitude that his life had suddenly become. 

He bakes very  _ very  _ often. 

There’s no way to say all that without the greater question being asked. So Jack stirs silently.

Gabriel doesn’t even seem to notice the lapse though. He’s too busy snagging a taste of the still warm caramel from the pot and making rather sexual faces at it, actually. “You bake all this shit, and you don’t even eat your own cooking?”

“Not really, no.” Jack admits, kind of sheepishly. By now the batter is coming together, swirling in practiced figure 8’s around his spatula and ready to be trayed. The sound of ripping parchment paper fills the kitchen. “There’s only so many of my own treats that I can eat.”

“That’s… that’s kind of wrong.” Gabe sounds undignified and horrified, and it has Jack smiling as he puts the batter into a bag and twists it. “Maybe even a sin. How can you make all this stuff and not even try it?”

“I try it!” Jack defends. He leans down close to a baking tray to begin laying out inch-wide dots of cookie batter. “I have to taste everything to make sure it’s right. I just don’t usually eat it afterwards.”

“That’s weird and wrong.” Gabriel says, adamant. “Also, those circles are absolutely perfect.”

Jack’s smile broadens.“Practice.”

The cookie tops only take minutes to rise and bake, and Jack pops the trays in and out of his double ovens with easy expertise. And it’s during this methodical switch of trays from oven to oven, then to the rack to cool, that Jack finally gets the answer as to why Gabriel’s days seem to start when the sun goes down and he arrives back in the early hours of the morning each day. 

“I’m a party promoter.” Gabriel says, seeming slightly embarrassed. 

“What’s that?”

“I uh, I show up to parties. Usually I bring people. Usually the clubs pay me.”

Jack is disbelieving. “The clubs pay you to go party there?”

Gabriel looks offended. He leans back in the chair heavily, arms folded over his chest with a challenge. “What's with the disbelief,  _ cabrón _ ? Somethin’ you wanna say-?”

“No, no! I just didn’t even know that was a thing.” Jack laughs off quickly. “It certainly explains a lot.” Such as Gabe’s looks, and the gorgeous people he came back with. “Sounds kind of like a dream job, actually.”

Just like that, the insulted air evaporates from Gabriel like mist. “Yeah? Well, I get punched less when I’m attending the parties, rather than body guarding them.” Gabriel’s smile is low and easy, warm like syrup. “Come with me sometime. It’s  _ always  _ a fun time when you’re with Gabe.”

The connotations of  _ that _ statement swing so wildly between Jack’s many fantasies that he can’t help but turn away to cover how absolutely flustered Gabriel makes him. Fuck, Gabriel in his house, at his kitchen table, eating his food, maybe eve flirting with him. Jack’s face burns.

“So what about you?”

Jack nearly drops his bowl. “What?”

Gabriel munches a cookie and looks thoroughly amused. “What about you,  _ auréo? _ What do you do each day, every day?”

Jack’s throat tightens. Gabriel was playing with him, and it’s making it very hard for Jack to string any coherent words together. “I’m a salesman. Sales representative, technically. I sell energy.”

“You… sell energy?”

“Uh, yes.” Jack says, glad to focus on something else other than Gabriel’s caramel eyes on him and sugarsweet phrases. “Like, green energy. I convince people and companies and places to use green energy. It’s not as fun as it sounds.”

“Somehow, that’s fitting.”

“Is it?” Jack doesn’t know. “It just kind of… happened. A friend got me the job.” Vincent had, actually. After months of unemployment to the point that Angela had asked Jack’s ex for help. Thankfully, Vincent’s word in his company had been enough to overlook the lackluster, disheveled appearance and dark bags beneath Jack’s eyes when he finally managed to drag himself to the interview. Not really a job he’d ever chosen for himself and not exactly satisfying, but at least the bills were finally being paid on time and he was good enough at the work to keep it. 

“I get that.” Gabriel’s arms fold and Jack sees him surreptitiously try to peel a cookie lid off of a baking sheet until it comes apart completely. He snickers and Gabe glares at him. 

“Why don’t they come off?” He whines petulantly. 

“They have to cool,” Jack laughs and gives Gabriel the pan of caramel again, instead. The abandoned bowl of plum pudding is basically gone, so he deposits that into the sink. 

“That reminds me- I have a collection of your dishes,” Gabriel remarks, words thick around the caramel. “I’ll have to bring them back down.”

Jack nods, and then realizes that would be bringing Gabriel back to his apartment in the future. He tries not to think about that too hard, but it’s hard to avoid the contagiously happy bubbling that rises in his chest at the thought.

“You didn’t answer me. You gonna come with me one of these nights?”

“To a  _ club _ ?” Maybe Jack’s voice cracks on the last syllable, maybe it doesn’t. He’s accidentally smeared one of the macaron tops on the next tray he’s pouring, and scowls, wiping at the edges to somehow fix it, mostly to no avail. This wasn’t Gabe flirting with him- it was just, just…. what? “I uh… I really don’t do clubs.”

“Come with me. We’ll have fun.” Gabe gives him a confusingly prurient look, and Jack is now desperately trying to keep his thoughts from spinning out of control. “You seem like you need to loosen up some. Come party with me.”

“That’s-” Jack clears his throat. Go to a club, with Gabriel. A whole night, not only with other people, but with  _ Gabriel. _ “I’ll think about it.”

“Good.” Gabe remarks smugly. He shoves the pan across the counter to Jack. “Pretty sure I finished your caramel,  _ chico _ . You’ll have to make more.”

Gabriel has, indeed, finished the entire pan of caramel. Jack takes the pan and stares down at the scraped sides and levels Gabriel with a half-hearted glare. “If you have a heart attack on the way home from sugar overload, it’s not my fault.” He tuts and rinses the pan free of the last of Gabe’s scoop marks. “Now there’s none for the cookies.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Jackie-boy. You shouldn’t make sweets so good if you don’t want me to eat ‘em.” 

Jack grins, and that bubbly feeling that’s been brewing in his chest and making him flutter about uselessly warms his movements. “I’ll make more.”

Upon hearing that the tops of the macarons have to cool for a long while and  _ then _ be assembled into their little sandwich shapes, Gabriel first starts complaining, then iterates loudly and very seriously that he’s not leaving until a new batch of cookies has been assembled. And despite Jack laughing him off, he does stay, hours into the evening long after the sun has set, chatting and joking through batches of cookies and then the messy assembling of macarons that end with more buttercream on the counter than anywhere else. 

And Jack finds himself genuinely laughing for what feels like the first time in ages. 

* * *

“ _ You missed your shift. Ogundimu is angry. _ ”

“Let him be angry. I had other things to do tonight.” Gabriel says, letting himself back into his apartment with another tupperware of Jack’s baking tucked under his arm. Ogundimu had a stick up his ass anyways- Gabriel could miss one party and the world wouldn’t end. 

Jack had made him promise to share the macarons with Jesse, but Gabe fully plans on hiding them in the back of his fridge and letting no one else ever see them. He balances the plate in one hand and kicks the front door shut behind him.

“ _ Other things _ ?” Amélie says, with no small amount of derision in her voice. “ _ Gabriel Reyes, if you fucked off and ditched me at that awful stag party for some piece of ass- _ ”

“Naw, I was just down at Jack’s.” Gabriel cuts in, giving in to the temptation of another cookie. Fuck, his stomach was gonna hate him, but it was worth every single morsel. 

“ _ Jack’s? _ ” Amélie’s line goes silent for a scant second. “ _ Are you eating another one of his desserts? _ ”

Gabriel’s mouth is full, so he just hums confirmation. 

“ _ You will get fat. What is it this time? _ ”

“Macarons,” Gabriel mumbles, putting the rest of the plate in his fridge and then collapsing onto his couch. “It’s worth it.”

“ _ He made macarons? Mon dieu- _ ” A crackle and the sound of movement comes over the line. “ _ I’m coming over _ .”

“What? No- seriously Amélie? I’m not fucking sharing everything with you, you goddamn bloodthirsty-” But the line is dead and beeps resonantly in his ear. He stares at the disconnected line and heaves a great sigh. Bitch was making a habit of coming over and scarfing all of his sweets. He never should have given her that spare key.

He tells himself it's revenge when he goes and retrieves the cookies he had stashed just a second ago and begins eating them, despite his severely protesting stomach. Worth it. 

It’s too bad the crash from the sugar high makes him fall asleep before he’s finished, and when he wakes, Amélie has perched herself on the coffee table and is finishing the very last one for him. 

With a smack of her devious lips, she gives him a wink. “Next time, have him make a clafoutis. I haven’t had one in years.”

* * *

The next morning, Jack heads out early, the crack of dawn just beginning to break the morning into daylight. If he’s quick, he can drop off the macarons he’d made last night with Gabe at the ER, then head to his last set of morning classes before the spring break. Then a late shift of work into the afternoon, and then maybe he could whip something else up for Angela… her birthday was coming up soon. 

When he opens his door, Jack stops. 

Sitting placidly on the floor, distinctly in front of Jack’s door, is a tiny vase of flowers. Deep, dark purple, the petals look like butterfly wings, and the tiny sprigs of baby’s breath make them look like pieces of midnight, clustered together by their green stems in a tiny glass mason jar. 

Jack crouches to pick them up, looking at them curiously. A gift, left in the hallway just like he always left sweets for Gabe. There’s a ripped piece of lined paper hastily taped to the side.

_ ‘My sister owns a flower shop,’ _ is scrawled half sideways in what can only be Gabe’s (pretty terrible) handwriting. Vaguely he remembers Gabe mentioning two sisters.  _ I’m an awkward middle child,  _ he’d joked warmly, covered in buttercream more than the spoon he’d been devouring. 

Jack smiles, and his fingers flitter over first the note, then one of the silken, violet petals, rubbing it between a thumb and forefinger. He returns inside to set the flowers at the very center of his kitchen table and turns them just so, before heading out again. 

His grin has trouble fading throughout the day. Even when a woman smacks him upside the head with her purse, and he gets cussed out by an aging veteran for being a scam artist (he’s not, it's the  _ damn job _ ). The warm fluttery feeling in his stomach only seems to spread when his thoughts inevitably trail back to the petite vase of flowers waiting for him at home, the content noises Gabriel made as he ate pretty much the whole pan of cooked caramel.

“You’re smiley today.” Lena finally remarks, leaned up on the edge of the sales counter with a smug look on her face. “Something good happen?”

Jack shrugs, because nothing had actually happened. Just Gabe spending an afternoon with him yesterday, and the flower delivery this morning. “Not much. The day’s just going fast, I guess.” 

Lena hums at him finger tapping rapid fire against her lip as she eyes him, like she’s waiting for him to continue. When nothing else is forthcoming, she bounces around the edge of the counter and stretches on tiptoes to give him a hug around the shoulders. 

“Well, whatever it is, it’s good to see you smile Jack. I was beginning to think the whole serious and stoic act was just your default, but the smile is a nice touch. Maybe your sales will go up!”

Jack rolls his eyes at her, but his grin is unfading. He’d have to think of something extra delicious to make Gabe for his next recipe. 

* * *

Experience and the chat with Gabriel the other night had told Jack about his neighbor’s penchant for chocolate, so triple chocolate mousse cake is what he makes. 

Truthfully, he’s always wanted to try this recipe. He’d been saving this particular cake for a special occasion- his Ma’s birthday, or perhaps Jimmy’s… they both had loved chocolate to the point of ridiculousness. But without them around anymore, there was no sense in holding off anymore, was there?

So he sets up his mixer after coming home from the store with copious amounts of heavy whipping cream, three kinds of chocolate, and the determination of a cake-making professional. Then he sets about creating. 

Five hours and 17 dirtied dishes later, he has a cake. 

It looks pretty good for his first try- the layers are all pretty even, and he knows the flavors all work together since he’d painstakingly tasted them all himself, one by one, then together in various combinations so that there was no flavor too strong or missed. To make it look extra clean, he runs a mildly hot knife along the outer perimeter and slides it back into the fridge to chill. 

Today is Gabe’s off day from what he’d said, and he would probably be waking up in an hour or two. Plenty of time for the cake to finish setting and look it’s best when it was finally delivered. It leaves enough time for Jack to scrub and dry every dish, replacing them carefully within his cabinets before bleaching the counters, the sinks, the mixer. The habit is so ingrained it only takes less than thirty minutes, and it is still too early to try delivering the cake. 

With a sigh, Jack looks around his kitchen, now sparkling clean. It’s so very silent and empty in his own house that the gleaming surfaces seem to have their own echo to reflect back at Jack. There was nothing left to do, nothing left to clean or focus on- even the courtyard outside was conspicuously devoid of any sort of distraction, and Jack twists the dishcloth in his hands around a few times anxiously, then he hangs it over the stove handle before he can ruin it. He should have tried to stay late at work again. 

Needing  _ something  _ to do, Jack takes a plate of ice, sets a matching porcelain bowl atop it, and begins shaving the remainder of the dark chili chocolate bar into slivers. Very carefully, he tries not to think of anything at all and carves first one slice, then another. Another. And another. He should have stayed late at work. 

It’s creeping past six and Jack has been focusing so intently on whittling down the chocolate bar, that he barely hears it when his phone begins to ring.

Five rings and almost to voicemail, Jack blinks himself from his stupor and puts the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“ _ Jack, my spidey-senses are going off, are you okay? _ ”

“Angela,” He breathes. “Hi.”

“ _ You sound funny, Jack. Are you okay? _ ” She repeats again, more urgently this time. “ _ Should I come over? _ ”

“No, no, I’m fine.” He hadn’t been, but her phone call seemed to knock some of the lethargy back from his mind at least. “I was just… baking.”

It sounds flat, and he winces. His throat is scratchy. He’d been sitting at the table for quite a while unmoving, so he gets up and gets himself a glass of water. Even his ass is sore- Angela would be tart if she knew he’d checked out like that.

She sounds tart as it is. “ _ You’re baking again? You need a different hobby Jack- maybe something outside? With fresh air? _ ”

“Can’t handle anymore of my sweets, Ange?” He jokes lightly, but it doesn’t ring right against her prodding sincerity. Her hum crackles over the line. 

“ _ You know I love everything you make, it's just…. _ ” A sigh. Something in the background on her end clatters. “ _ I’m worried about you Jack. I want to help. _ ”

“You help me everyday, Ange.” She did help him, and she was so busy at the hospital. The few times a week they saw each other were hard pressed to stay a working habit as she rose through the hospital ranks and her schedule became busier and busier at the ER. She had to worry about herself- Jack could handle being on his own. It was fine. “Don’t worry so much.”

“ _ Jack-” _

“Seriously. I’m fine. You shouldn’t be focusing on me. I know how much you have on your plate.” She spent so much time caring about other people. She didn’t need to add Jack to that list- he should be the one supporting her, for christ’s sake, and he was barely keeping himself afloat. 

His eyes drag across his workspace, over the overflowing bowl of more chocolate shavings than he could ever use, the mess he’d made and his smeared hands, and come to rest on the tiny vase of flowers on the table. Gabe’s writing is still leaning against its base on ripped paper, messily scrawled.  _ My sister owns a flower shop _ .

“ _ Are you sure you're okay? I can come over for a bit if-” _

“No, actually. I think I’m gonna go deliver this cake,” Jack says quickly. “My neighbor has been looking out for me lately. He likes chocolate.”

Gabriel kind of had been looking out for him, even though he didn’t know it. The goal of seeing Gabriel around the building, of delivering food to someone who had come to expect them and enjoyed them so much- it was helping. Jack felt… he felt better. Even in off moments like this. 

He reaches across the table and rubs the velvet petal of a plushly dark purple flower between his thumb and forefinger, thoughtful.

“ _ Really? _ ” Angela says, sounding surprised. There’s a moment of silence in which all Jack can hear over the line is the quiet background noise of machinery and murmuring patients. “ _ That’s… that’s great, Jack. I’m glad you have someone looking out for you, other than me. _ ” She breathes, “ _ That’s really really good. _ ”

Jack smiles into the receiver. She worried about him far too much. “Are you still at the hospital? No slacking off at work, Dr Ziegler.” He teases to divert some of the attention off of himself and whatever thoughts she is having about him that are bleeding through the line. 

“ _ I’m on a fifteen, someone can wait to die until I can get back, _ ” Angela titters snidely, accepting Jack’s topic change easily. She sounds tired. “ _ It’s like the place would collapse if I forgot to show up just one day. _ ”

“You’re too good at your job, what did you expect?”

“ _ Stop with the flattery Jack. It doesn’t suit you. _ ” Angela replies, clearly flattered. 

He’s about to hang up when his name crackles out loudly from her end and makes him pause. “ _ Jack? I’m glad you’re doing well. Just… just be careful. _ ”

Jack hums. “I’m always careful, Ange.”

“ _ No you’re not, you big dummy.” _ Her voice is very soft, and Jack has to press the phone close to his ear to hear her words. “ _ Just don’t get hurt anymore. Not now, okay? _ ”

“I won’t. I promise.” He would try, at least. “I’ll bring something by the hospital in the morning, alright?”

“ _ Bring more of those brownie cookies from last week. I think Brigitte took the whole plate home and I only got two. _ ”

“Alright alright. Good luck Ange.”

“ _ I’ll talk to you later, Jack. _ ”

The phone clicks off, and he watches the call symbol shrink away from the screen. She really did worry about him too much, with too much on her own plate to be doing so. He was fine. He was moving on. Life went on, and so he had to, too. 

He never considered how hard moving on would be, before he’d actually had to face that obstacle for himself. But there wasn’t any reason for Angela to get bogged down with him when she was doing so much better, herself. She’d lost far more over the years than he could ever begin to imagine. He could do this. Jack had to do better for her. Which started with getting the fuck out of this damn apartment like Angela told him to, time and time again. 

Resolutely, Jack stands and takes his bowl of chocolate shavings and shoves a few morsels in his mouth. The rest go in an artful pile on top of the cake, which looks even better now that it’s set some in the fridge. Finally, he dumps the melted bowl of ice down the drain and makes his way up the two flights of stairs to Gabe’s apartment. 

Gabriel answers on the second knock. “Oh holy hell,” He says when he sees the cake. He raises a brow at Jack. “What are we celebrating?”

Jack shrugs, finding himself grinning and already feeling more grounded. “I wanted to say thank you for the flowers.”

“I get a whole ass cake for that tiny bouquet of flowers?” Gabriel blows a breath and scrubs a hand through his hair, making the curls fluff in an unbearably attractive way. “Well, you better come in and eat it with me, cause there’s no way I’m gonna finish that.”

_ Oh- _ “Oh no, I couldn’t-”

“Just come in, Jack.” Gabriel says, takes the cake and leaves the door swinging, which really doesn’t leave Jack all that much of a choice. 

Gabe had spent all yesterday at Jack’s apartment, he reassures himself as he steps inside and closes the swinging door. This was fine. He could handle this.

It’s only after he’s crossed the threshold and registers the smell that he realizes Gabe is about to have dinner. 

“Jeez, did I come right when you were about to eat?” Jack says, frozen in the foyar next to the tiny shoe rack that contained almost exclusively black leather combat boots. The smell of spiced meat is heavy in the air even out here, and his stomach gurgles approval. Fuck, he should have just insisted on going home. “Listen, I should-”

“Quit freaking out and come in here, man.” Gabe’s voice comes from somewhere deeper in the apartment. 

Jack wipes sweaty palms on his jeans. Was he that obvious? Shit, how the hell could he back out of this now without seeming like a total jackass?

Nervously, he toes off his shoes, nudges them beside one of the sets of boots, and steps into Gabe’s apartment. 

Gabe’s apartment is almost the same as Jack’s own- laid out a little bit differently, but the windows are still set off the dining room, and when he peers down the hallway it looks like the bedroom and bathroom are similarly down at the end. Jack follows his nose to the kitchen.

Gabriel’s kitchen is, frankly, a giant, messy clusterfuck. There’s more odds and ends than cooking ware from what Jack can see, and they’re everywhere- Dried peppers hanging from the walls next to posters and shelves covered in empty and full liquor bottles alike. A poster hanging just slightly askew next to the fridge and the remnants of vegetables and meat trimming on a cutting board about to slide off the counter. On the stove burbles an overly large pot that is still steaming away happily; the source of the heavenly smell that pervades everything in the apartment. 

Gabriel himself is holding a bowl of food out to Jack, like he expects him to take it. 

For a second, Jack just looks at him skeptically, and with an impatient jerk of his wrist, Gabriel nearly shoves the bowl at him, and goes back to his cut slice of cake with relish. 

Jack watches him suspiciously. “Did you already eat?” 

“Chocolate takes priority.”

“Are you 12?”

“Could be.” Gabriel takes a massive mouthful in defiance. “I’m not the one that spends every waking moment baking like easy-bake wasn’t a phase.”

“Ouch.” Jack laughs. The food he’s been handed is thick, kinda like stew, but more like the pork fried rice Angela brought from that one chinese place and absolutely coated in spices.

It’s way fucking better.

“God, what  _ is _ this?”

“Just  _ paella _ , white boy. Rice and meat.” And then Gabriel looks at him rather critically. At least, Jack thinks it’s critically. Hard to tell with his mouth so full he can’t breathe and his head shoved down in the bowl. “Careful there,  _ chico _ . You look like you’re gonna cry over there.”

“This’so f’n gud-” Jack squeezes out. 

Gabriel laughs at him. “Oh, I know.” He gives Jack a sly look and holds a single finger to his lips. “Gramma’s secret recipe.”

“God, you could make me this anytime,” Jack says, scarfing down food. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. Tries not to think about it actually, and how much he’s wasted away in just the past year or so. With all the baking stuff filling his kitchen ad time, and work filling everything in between, there wasn’t much room for anything else it seemed. Thinking back, Jack realizes he’s not quite sure the last time he had a full, filling meal.

“Keep bringing me sweets and I will,” Gabriel agrees easily. His fork scrapes the plate with tiny screeches and he licks it clean. “What’s this one called?”

“It’s a mousse cake. Triple chocolate.”

“Damn. Just send me to chocoholic heaven and I’ll be happy.” Gabriel is already cutting himself a second slice. “I don’t even know how the fuck you’d make this shit, but don’t stop. It’s better than god.”

Raised as a devout catholic, Jack can’t help himself from remarking, “Careful, that’s blasphemy.”

“Psh, you don’t believe.” Gabe snorts, and then freezes. “Wait, do you believe? I didn’t-”

“No, no. Not anymore.” Not since long before the accident that had demolished the last of his faith in a higher power. “But I used to be an acolyte.”

“I’m not even surprised. You’re like, the perfect goody two shoes, poster-child of a devout american.” Gabriel shakes his head and uses his fork to point at Jack’s empty bowl. “Want more?”

“Yes.” Jack says, way too quickly. He clears his throat, a little abashed. “Uh, yes please,” and hands the bowl back. 

Jack’s on his third bowl when Gabriel finally asks him. “Do you eat regular meals?”

Ah, here it was. The questions. Jack shouldn’t have come in at all. 

Starting to get full, Jack stirs the remains of the  _ paella _ around the bottom of the dark red porcelain bowl awkwardly. “Maybe not as much as I should?” He finally admits. “I don’t really… cook. I bake, but when I cook meals it's not…” He trails off. It was usually pretty disastrous, actually. He’d kind of been living off the takeout that Angela had been bringing him semi-regularly. With blandly startled comprehension, he realizes that he doesn’t think he’s made anything  _ but _ desserts since he’d moved in. The thought makes something pathetic twist inside of him. 

Perhaps he had been relying on Angela too much lately to stay afloat… she was right to be worried. 

“Come back tomorrow. We’ll trade- dessert for dinner, yeah?”

Jack smiles, and agrees, when a thought occurs to make him stop mid motion in his last bite. This…. This almost felt like a date. Being invited back  _ sounded  _ like a date, and his mind flies to Gabe’s flirtatious comments from yesterday. If this was a date, he’d just unwittingly agreed to more. 

And Jack wants to keep coming back. He enjoys being around Gabe, who fills the silence in a strangely unobtrusive way, an escape from the oppressive silence of Jack’s own apartment where he just baked away every stray thought that hung like cobwebs on his every spare moment. 

His eyes flick to Gabriel, licking his spoon satisfyingly, enjoying the dessert that Jack. had made just for him, and tries not to let these thoughts make him flush. It’s worse when he notices that set back on Gabe’s tongue is the distinctive glint of a tongue piercing, which has his thoughts plunging right down the pipes and into the gutter.

Jack freezes, a little shocked at himself. He liked Gabriel.  _ Liked _ liked Gabriel. Jack could count on one hand the amount of times he had genuinely liked someone past the point of a tiny, blushing crush into the want for something more. But as he watches Gabriel across the kitchen rinsing his cake plate and completely at ease with putting Jack at ease, he realizes that that is exactly what has happened. Quickly and silently, Jack’s crush has become quite a bit more and left him, well… wanting. 

He swallows and tries to control his heart rate, which is speeding along just as fast and erratic as his thoughts seem to be. The paella sticks in his throat uncomfortably. This didn’t need to be dating for them to enjoy each other’s company and cooking, he tells himself. He was fine with friendship. Actually, if he stayed friends with Gabe, that could be more than enough. 

So then why was his stomach queasily trying to flip itself over with discomfort at that idea?

Suddenly, he’s not nearly as relaxed as he was. Actually, he’s feeling all sorts of on the edge, because once the thought has occurred, it won’t fucking go away. Suddenly, he finds his eyes tracking the broad sweep of Gabe’s shoulders as he rinses his dish, Gabe’s hands as he gets himself a bowl of paella, the movement of Gabe’s mouth when he speaks, and Jack can’t remember a word of the conversation they’re apparently still having. 

“Uh, you know what? I think I left something in the oven downstairs,” Jack interrupts Gabe mid sentence, a flurry of panic making him set the bowl with a smack on the countertop, spoon rattling. “I should- the fire alarm-” He’s floundering. Badly. He coughs, rubs his hands against his jeans. 

“What, you’re remembering just now?” Gabe says with a raised eyebrow. He turns and apparently doesn’t like the look he sees on Jack’s face. His eyebrows furrow together in a way that Jack wants to press smooth with his fingers. “Jack-”

“I should really be getting going! Work in the morning and all!” Fuck. Fuck, he was screwing this up. He was always screwing these things up, what the fuck was  _ wrong _ with him?

“Jack, wait-”

“Thanks for the food!” Jack calls, snags his shoes from beside the door and doesn’t even put them on. Then, like the absolute coward he is, he’s hightailing it away from Gabriel’s apartment. The door shuts with a very final sounding click behind him.

He’s breathing hard like he’s run a mile and doesn’t stop moving until he’s safely behind the door of his own apartment in the silence of his own kitchen. His hands are quaking. He had royally fucked that up. He was fucking up whatever this was happening with Gabriel, like a goddamn idiot. 

Jack lets himself slide to the floor forlornly, dropping his shoes on the floor and his head onto his knee. What the hell was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he just have normal interactions with people? He’d been popular in school, easy-going and approachable, at ease in whatever situation he was thrown into… when had that disappeared? Now he couldn’t even handle standing in a kitchen with a guy that had been nothing but nice to him. 

He sighs, stares around his empty, hollow house. Gabe was too good for him anyways. Maybe he would just make a custard cake or something, to take his mind off of it all. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA, Jack’s a dummy and Gabe is eating a wholly unhealthy amount of sweets. But can anyone truly be sick of sugar??  
> As someone who bakes too much and whose roommate is diabetic, I can tell you that yes. You can literally be sick from sugar.   
> Eat your veggies, kids.   
> Also, normalize giving guys flowers- everybody likes flowers.
> 
> Paella is one of the most basic and simultaneously one of the more complex Spanish dishes to be had. The recipe changes pretty drastically from region to region, but it is always good. Pronounced ‘pie-eh-yah’
> 
> Sorry for taking so long to post this chapter- I’ve been typing my schoolwork + everything else on a keyboard I jerry-rigged to my phone, since my computer is obliterated. -_-”

**Author's Note:**

> Are Jack’s snacks love confessions? What does Gabe do as his “day” job? What will our boy make next? Will Jesse ever get as many sugary sweets from Jack as Gabe does?  
> ((the world may never know~))
> 
> Please excuse the mistakes and misspellings- this was a quick little fluff piece (that isn’t turning out nearly as short as intended), that I couldn’t quite get from my head and I typed out during my business law class -.-’ If anyone wants to beta read the next two parts (which may end up rated M later), I would so very much appreciate it.
> 
> A great big thanks to "In the language of flowers" by sgtbaarnes (Thighz), which happened to be the very first Overwatch fic I read, and it obviously stuck with me in more than one way.
> 
> Song of this chapter is City of Stars (from La La Land)


End file.
